A very good friend of mine, and senior executive with Google, suggested to me today that the search giant is imminently poised to begin consolidating the search engine optimization industry. Google plans to make SEO services available to web site owners and marketers directly, to better enable them to increase their advertising return on investment and make their web sites more effective, for free.

If you are scoffing at the possibility, let’s look at Google from a philosophical perspective. Google likes to have complete control. When Google decided it was serious about the video space it launched a new tab titled video on its home page. At a certain point the company realized YouTube was too strong a competitor and Google threw in the towel and purchased the video competitor. So one wonders if history may indeed repeat itself and Google will start with purchasing/hiring the largest SEO agencies and industry personalities.

In fact, I’m told, that a press release has already been drawn up announcing that it is interested in acquiring "leaders in search”. Apparently, the only thing that this acquisition strategy is subject to is having the following industry leaders accepting positions within this new department:

16 Responses to “Google to Consolidate SEO Industry”

hmmmmm… gonna have to get me some new business cards whipped up methinks Tom. I can see stock prices dropping drastically tomorrow on this news mind you. A pretty motley crew (except for Shana of course).

You got me on that one guys! I saw the release earlier about Matt Cutts heading up Google's new SEO department for Performics at search engine roundtable, maybe that was a hoax as well, considering the timing.